ber of angels that could stand on the point of a needle. "Was a proposition in physics or metaphysics to be determined? The schoolmen sent you, not to analyze the thing; but they coerced it into the categories and syllabus of the subtle Greek; they put it into the straight waist-coat of some dialectic formula; they put it upon the rack and torture of syllogism and enthymeme; and, finally, bound it down and smothered it by the decrees of councils and the bulls of popes. Was the inquirer still unsatisfied? The ponderous names of a Duns Scotus, a Thomas Acquinas, or some other angelic doctor, or some Gregory or Innocent or Boniface, were made to thunder about his ears with the technical barbarisms of a scholastic jargon, till, overwhelmed and confounded, if not convinced, especially as those barbarisms were no mere bruta fulmina, but behind them was brandished before his eyes the ultima reason of spiritual despots-the mightier logic of imprisonment, wheel, and faggot."1

With religion on the throne and intellect in chains, it is easy to understand, as already observed, why such a mass of incongruities, errors, and superstitions as is upheld by the Romish church became a part of religious worship and

1 Skeptical Era in Modern History, p. 72.

practise during the medieval period. The correct exercise of all the faculties of man's being is required in order to preserve the proper equilibrium of his religious faith. Religion is no more safe unless understandingly sanctioned by intellect than reason is to be trusted without the morally restraining force of a proper religion. But during this period of religious tyranny every attempt the intellect made to assert its rights of independent thinking was put down by the strong arm of the church. For advocating the Copernican theory of astronomy and the plurality of worlds Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake. And a few years later the immortal Galileo, fearing a similar fate, was constrained to kneel before the Holy (?) Inquisition and say, among other things: "I have been judged as being vehemently suspected of heresy, for having maintained and believed that the sun was the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth was not the center, and that it moved. Therefore wishing to efface from the minds of your Eminence and from all Catholic Christianity this vehement suspicion conceived justly against me, it is with a sincere heart and with faith not feigned that I abjure, curse, and detest the above-named errors and heresies." According to the principles of man's natural consti

tution, such a state of affairs could not always exist. The offended and indignant intellect was sure to revolt and issue a declaration of independence. Well has Hugh Miller said: "Preconceived opinion, whether it hold fast, with Lactantius and the old schoolmen, to the belief that there can be no antipodes, or assert, with Caccini and Bellarmine, that our globe hangs lazily in the heavens, while the sun moves round it, must yield ultimately to scientific truth."1

It is a current belief that the Reformation was the direct means of the liberation of the intellect. It was, however, only one of the contributing factors to this result. While the Reformation broke the power of Rome's universal supremacy, the early history of Protestantism shows that the intolerant spirit of dogmatism was transferred to the new order and that the people submitted to a new master. It was this spirit that led Luther to repudiate Zwingli, who on many points was nearer the truth than was Luther himself; that caused the Protestant Council of Zurich to drown Felix Mantz for a religious opinion now received as truth by a large part of Christendom; that was responsible for that saddest blot on the career of Calvin-the commitment of Servetus to the stake; 1 Testimony of the Rocks, p. 108.

and that caused Melancthon, the co-reformer of Luther, to rejoice in the execution of heretics and to pronounce the burning of Servetus a "pious and memorable example for all posterity." According to Ueberweg, Luther manifested a hostility toward science and philosophy as fierce as had been shown by any of the scholastics.2 "Luther and Melancthon were both violently hostile to the Copernican system in astronomy." But this intolerant spirit brought out of Catholicism by the early reformers afterwards became modified more in accordance with the true spirit of Christianity. Thus, the Reformation contributed in a general way to the liberalizing movement that first made its appearance at a date anterior to the great religious revival.

During the fifteenth century Europe began to awaken from her long sleep of centuries, and made decided progress along intellectual lines. To this result a number of causes contributed-the decline of feudalism, the discovery of America, the invention of the art of printing, and perhaps above all else the revival of letters. While the Turks were overrunning the Eastern Empire, students fled westward into Italy, bringing with them their literary treasures of antiquity, many of which

2 History of Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 17.

were unknown in Western Europe before that time. A love for classical study, amounting nearly to a passion, sprang up in Italy, and students from Northern Europe journeyed there in order to obtain a knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics. The discoveries in physical science and the advances made in modern philosophy, aided by the advantages which the successes of the Reformation afforded, finally completed the liberation of the intellectual powers.

With the complete liberation of the intellectual faculties, however, a reaction set in. The Italian Renaissance was decidedly skeptical in spirit. Being in chief part a revival of Paganism, it could not but develop a strong anti-Christian sentiment. Thenceforth a line of skeptical writers and reasoners can be traced. Intoxicated with successes in the departments of physical science and philosophical inquiry, the proud intellect finally encroached upon religion until evangelical Christianity was almost threatened with extinction. This period became known as the "age of reason," and it culminated, in France, in the wild delirium of that terrible revolution in which immorality held high carnival, all religion was trampled under foot, and the God of heaven declared dethroned. The same evil influences at work in England were pre